Tata Power Solar, India’s largest integrated solar company, has successfully commissioned a 100 MW solar project for NTPC, India’s largest power Utility. Aligning with the Government’s ‘Make in India’ mission, this is the biggest solar project commissioned using domestically manufactured solar cells and modules. It delivered the project nearly 3 months ahead of the stringent schedule. Key highlights of the project were the innovative design of Balance-of-System (BoS) and cabling.

OX2 has placed an order for 31 V126-3.45 MW turbines with power-optimised mode to 3.6 MW and Vestas’ de-icing system, reinforcing Vestas’ market-leading position in Norway. “Raskiftet is OX2’s largest wind power project to date and our first wind farm in Norway. We have worked successfully with Vestas for many years and are looking forward to building another high-quality wind farm together”, said Paul Stormoen, Managing Director of OX2 Wind.

The U.S Department of Energy (DOE) has announced up to $7 million in project funding to accelerate the introduction of affordable, scalable, and sustainable high-performance fuels for use in high-efficiency, low-emission engines as part of the Co-Optimization of Fuels and Engines (Co-Optima) initiative.

Duke Energy Renewables has announced its monitoring and control center now serves more than 3,500 megawatts of wind and solar energy plants across the U.S. since it opened in its new location in 2015. As a result of this rapid growth, the center is further enhancing its cyber security and other capabilities.

Dubai is to create a new program to reward innovative companies around the world. The Companies will compete to solve seven key “21st-century challenges”. The program is designed to create new partnerships, deploy new technologies and test them at the city-wide scale and is another example of Dubai’s deepening commitment to becoming a test bed for futuristic technologies and businesses that are intended to change the future of Dubai.

Renewable NRG Systems (RNRG), a designer and manufacturer of decision support tools for the global renewable energy industry, has announced that it has supplied complete resource assessment packages to French developer VALOREM to support their renewable energy project development activities in Africa. VALOREM is currently building a pipeline of five wind and solar farms at various development stages, totaling around 100 MW spread across various North African countries. The French company is also positioned as a service provider in Sub-Saharan […]

Sol Voltaics, the Swedish development company, has developed a nano film, which can increase the efficiency of solar cells. According to research, a solar cell coated with the nano film has proven to increase its production by 50 percent or more. Lars Samuelsson, Professor of Solid State Physics at Lund University, who led the research behind the company, said: “This is fantastic progress. Standard solar cells with an efficiency of 16-17 percent can be boosted up to 27 percent. Yet the cost of the finished solar cells is no more than 10-15 percent.”

Modern IT solutions can act as a catalyst to accelerate the development of renewable energies, as they play a key role in adapting demand to the prevailing sun and wind conditions. Ulrich Dietz, CEO of GFT Technologies AG stated that successful implementation will require huge investments in the intelligent controlling and grid integration of wind and solar power. He believes that, in Germany, in particular, the IT industry can play a significant role in this change by formulating creative solutions. “If we are fast, we can create 50,000 new jobs in this field over the coming years at IT companies alone”. Experts forecast that 25 to 30 billion euros will have to be invested in Germany by 2030 and that the opportunities for German energy technology and the IT industry on the global markets for smart grids are immense.

A new report lays out the reasons and means to alter the United States’s energy supply entirely to renewable energies. It examines the fall in wind and solar costs and the fact that solar growth has exceeded energy advocates’ expectations. It states that The United States has the technical potential to achieve its electricity needs more than 100 times over with solar energy and more than 10 times over with wind energy. Detailed studies on clean energy systems have shown that there are no obstacles in achieving a move to 100% renewable energy; it is entirely possible to make a complete transition at a cost that would be comparable or less than is currently spent on dirty energy.

Utilities have been slow to adopt renewable innovations like wind and rooftop solar, according to some critics, however, utilities now have the opportunity to seize a share of the $400bn US petrol market from the oil companies. Capturing market share for light-duty vehicles alone, “power sales would rise by about 25%, adding roughly $100bn per year to electric utility revenues and saving car drivers about $300bn a year”, states Michael Shepherd, Chairman of E-Source, highlighting a superb opportunity for utilities to boost significantly the growth of EV transportation.

JA Solar has announced that it has started mass production of high-performance PV panels at its high-performance manufacturing facility in Xingtai, Hebei province, China. The new facility, located in the Economic Development District of Xingtai city, has an annual capacity of 1.5 GW with fully automated assembly lines using the latest module manufacturing technologies. The fully automated assembly lines for making standard 60- and 72-cell modules significantly increase the productivity of the facility. The annual production per capita is estimated to be 2 MW, the highest among peers in the industry.